Sunday, March 01, 2009

MUMM NAPA & Sparkling Wine

Having finished up with the tour of the winery we (Margaret,Ramiro and I) headed off to our next stop in the Napa Valley tour to MUMM NAPA.  Of course the interesting part was that our guide Ramiro had no clue where this place was at and for about 15 minutes we debated on its name, confused between NUNN and MUMM. Interestingly with the help of the iPhone and Google maps we quickly discovered the route and headed in the general direction until we arrived at MUMM NAPA.

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Click here to read more on MUMM NAPA

I was actually looking forward to this tour cause personally I like champagne better that wine. Same old drill we went for the tour and the first thing i learnt really got me.  Apparently if this stuff is not made in a specific place in France, it cannot be called “Champagne”, WHAT!. Oh yeah anywhere else it is called “Sparkling Wine”. Ok I get it, the French are picky, they probably have a good reason to be, I just don't care.

I wont get into the details of the process, you can get that from http://www.madehow.com. However it is worth the while calling out that specific step through which they get rid of the dead yeast in the bottles by freezing them was fascinating.

Ramiro, Margaret and I retired to the lounge area to taste some of the Sparkling wines from MUMM NAPA and then headed home.  It was a fine way to end our first day in San Francisco. We were looking forward to visiting Alcatraz the next day.

Over and Out, Raj

Napa Valley – Robert Mondavi Winery Part II

Having gone through the whole rigmarole of learning how to cultivate good grapes and then how to extract their juice and make wine, it was finally time to taste some wine.

As we walked back from the winery to the tasting room i came across some cool art work on the wall giving this relative modern establishment a rustic look.

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Now came the moment I dreaded most, tasting wine.  I have never had the pallet to taste good wine, I usually settle for the generic beer or some Jack and Coke. This was an interesting experience. What I learnt most of it all was the Wine tasting was no different from tasting tea. Big difference is that tasting tea does not give you a buzz ;).

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The most interesting part of this all to me was the difference the glass made. Yes believe it or not I could actually tell. So the guy pours wine into a regular looking round wine goblet and we go through the motions of swishing it around smelling the wine and tasting, I was not impressed.  The he brings out a goblet which is allot wider than what he had given us earlier and he says try this,  Like the glass was going to make a difference.  BOY was I pleasantly surprised.  It did make a difference and it tasted allot better.  Then came the story of how Riedel came into Napa valley and pitched their glasses to Robert and the rest made history as usual.

This was one of the better experiences I’ve had in a long time, any trip out with my wife is fun in general, but this one was unique in the perspective that I learnt a bit about wine making but most importantly reiterated the fact that we as human beings have this innate ability to dream and realize them, admits all hard ships. Robert Mondavi was just one more example to drive the fact home, a visionary who redefined the art of wine making.

The next time you are around San Francisco I’d strongly recommend you take a trip up to Napa Valley and check out the Robert Mondavi winery. 

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Over and Out, Raj

NW Trek – Photographing animals a whole new experience

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